And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.
And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. Matthew alone records the precise sum, because a remarkable and complicated prophecy, which he was afterward to refer to, was fulfilled by it.
And he sought how he might conveniently betray him-or, as mere fully given in Luke (Luke 22:6), "And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray Him unto them in the absence of the multitude." That he should avoid an "uproar" or 'riot' among the people, which probably was made an essential condition by the Jewish authorities, was thus assented to by the traitor; into whom, says Luke (Luke 22:3), "Satan entered," to put him upon this hellish deed.
Remarks:
(1) Among the 'undesigned coincidences' in the narratives of the Four Evangelists which so strongly confirm their truth, not the least striking are the representations given of the respective characters of Martha and Mary by the Third and Fourth Evangelists. While in Luke we have a scene omitted by John, in which the active services of Martha and the placid affection, the passive docility, of Mary come strikingly out (see the notes at Luke 10:38-42), we have in John (John 12:1, etc.) a very different scene, omitted by Luke, in which, nevertheless, the same characteristics appear. Martha serves, while Mary diffuses over her Lord the odour of her love, in the costly ointment which she spent upon Him. What are these but different rays from one bright historic Reality?
(2) In this feast, beheld in its inner character, may we not see on a small scale something like what is from age to age realized in the kingdom of grace? Here is the Redeemer surrounded by the varied trophies of His grace. First, we have Simon the leper-the healed man; next, Lazarus-the risen man; and here is the man that leaned on Jesus' breast, nearest to his Lord-type of seraphic affection; and that other "son of thunder," James, the brother of John, who was honoured to drink of his Lord's cup, and be baptized with the baptism which He was baptized withal-the man of impulsive but robust devotion to Christ; and here was blessed Simon Bar-jona-the man of commanding energy-first among the Twelve; and all the diversified types of Christian character, as exemplified in the rest: But, lo! in the midst of these, and one of their number, was "a devil" - type of that traitorous spirit from which probably the Christian Church has hardly ever been quite free.
But woman also is here represented-redeemed womanhood; and in its two great types-active and passive, or doing and feeling. And yet there was doing in both, and feeling in both; although the hands were the characteristic in the one case, the heart in the other. And what would the Church and the world be without both? Active service laid the foundations of the infant Church, and has ever since diffused and preserved it; active service has rolled back the tide of corruption when it had settled over the Church, and restored its evangelical character; and the active services of woman have been in every age of quickened Christianity as precious as they have been beautiful. But it is the service of love which Christ values. Love to Christ transfigures the humblest services. All, indeed, who have themselves a heart value its least outgoings above the most costly mechanical performances; but how does it endear the Saviour to us to find Himself endorsing that principle, as His own standard in judging of character and deeds!
`What though in poor and humble guise Thou here didst sojourn cottage-born?
Yet from thy glory in the skies Our earthly gold thou dost not scorn. For Love delights to bring her best, And where Love is, that offering evermore is blest.
`Love on the Saviour's dying head Her spikenard drops unblam'd may pour, May mount His cross and wrap Him dead In spices from the golden shore,' etc. (-KEBLE)
(3) Works of utility are never to be set in opposition to the promptings of self-sacrificing love, and the sincerity of those who do so is to be suspected. What a number of starving families might those "three hundred pence" have cheered (would Judas exclaim, if time had been allowed him to enlarge upon this waste)! In like manner, under the mask of concern for the poor at home, how many excuse themselves from all care of the perishing pagan abroad! The bad source of such complaints and the insincerity of such excuses may reasonably be suspected.
(4) Amidst conflicting duties, that which our hand presently findeth to do is to be preferred to that which can be done at any time. "Ye have the poor always with you; but Me ye have not always."
(5) The Lord Jesus has an exalted consciousness of the worth of His own presence with His people, and will have them alive to it too. There is, indeed, a sense in which He is with them always, even to the world's end (Matthew 28:20). But there are special opportunities of which it may be said, "Me ye have not always;" and it is the part of wisdom to avail ourselves of these while we have them, even though it should interfere with duties, which, however important, are of such a nature that opportunities for doing them never cease.
(6) To those who are oppressed with the little they can do for Christ, what unspeakable consolation is there in that testimony borne to Mary, "She hath done what she could"! Not the poorest and humblest of Christ's loving followers but may, on this principle, rise as high in the esteem of Christ as the wealthiest and those who move in the widest spheres of Christian usefulness. "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not" (2 Corinthians 8:12). On this delightful subject, see also the notes at Luke 21:1-4, with Remarks at the close of that section.
(7) As Jesus beheld in spirit the universal diffusion of His Gospel, while His lowest depth of humiliation was only approaching, so He regarded the facts of His earthly History as constituting the substance of "this Gospel," and the proclamation of them as just the "preaching of this Gospel." Not that preachers are to confine themselves to a bare narration of these facts, but that they are to make their whole preaching revolve around them as its grand center, and derive from them its proper vitality; all that goes before this in the Bible being but the preparation for them, and all that follows but the sequel.
(8) The crime of Judas is too apt to be viewed as something exceptional in character and atrocity. But the study of its different stages is fitted to dissipate that delusion. First, Covetousness being his master-passion, the Lord suffered it to reveal itself and gather strength, by entrusting him with "the bag" (John 12:6), as treasurer to Himself and the Twelve. Next, in the discharge of that most sacred trust, he began to pilfer, and became "a thief," appropriating the store from time to time to his own use. Then Satan, walking about seeking whom he might devour, and seeing this door standing wide open, determined to enter by it; but cautiously (2 Corinthians 2:11) - at first merely "putting it into his heart to betray him" (John 13:2), or whispering to him the thought that by this means he might enrich himself, and that possibly, when the danger became extreme, He who had performed so many miracles, might miraculously extricate Himself.
The next stage was the conversion of that thought into thee settled purpose to do it; to which we may well suppose he would be loath to come until something occurred to fix it. That something, we apprehend, was what took place at the house of Simon the leper; from which he probably withdrew with a chagrin which was perhaps all that was now wanted to decide him. Still starting back, however, or mercifully held back for some time, the determination to carry it into immediate effect was not consummated, it would appear, until, sitting at the Paschal supper, "Satan entered into him," John 13:27; and conscience now effectually stifled, only rose, after the deed, to drive him to despair. O, what warnings do these facts sound forth to everyone! Could the traitor but be permitted to send a messenger from "his own place" (Acts 1:25) to warn the living-as the rich man in the parable wished that Lazarus might be to his five brethren-with what a piercing cry would he utter these word, "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows" "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith." "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (1 Timothy 6:9-10; 1 Peter 5:8-9; James 4:7.)
(9) How sublime is the self-possession with which Jesus, four days after this scene at Bethany, announced to the Twelve that in two days more He should be betrayed to be crucified! At that very moment, perhaps, the Jewish authorities were assembled in the palace of the high priest, consulting together how they might do it; and Judas, who had stolen away from the rest of the Twelve, and got admission to the Council, was just concluding his bargain, perhaps, when He to whose mind every step of the process lay open, disclosed to His true-hearted ones the near-approaching consummation. What a study have we here: on the one hand, of incomparable placidity in One of acutest sensibility; and on the other, of the harmonious working of man's perfectly free will, and the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that what men freely resolve on and do shall come to pass for His own high ends! "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory forever. Amen." (See the note at Romans 11:36.)